1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a fixing structure for fixing, for example, a metal plate to be electrically connected to a wiring member such as a round terminal, and a bolt fixing the wiring member and the metal plate together, to a synthetic resin member. The present invention further relates to a connector having the above-described fixing structure.
2. Description of the Related Art
Various electric components in which a wiring member, such as a round terminal, and a metal plate, such as a bus bar, are fixed to each other by a bolt and a nut for an electrical connection, are known. One of such electric components disclosed for example in Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2000-164111, shown in FIG. 8, includes a metal plate and a bolt, both of which are pre-fixed to a synthetic resin member such as a housing to facilitate assembly.
FIG. 8 is a cross-sectional view of the conventional fixing structure for fixing a metal plate and a bolt to a synthetic resin member. For a fixing structure 206 shown in FIG. 8 for fixing a metal plate and a bolt to a synthetic resin member, both edges 252, 253 of a metal plate 205 and a head portion 203 of a bolt 201 formed together with a synthetic resin member 207 by insert molding.
In addition, the bolt 201 has a shank portion 202 passing through a through hole 251 of the metal plate 205. In such manner, the metal plate 205 and the bolt 201 are fixed to the synthetic resin member 207. When insert molding the metal plate 205 and the bolt 201 with the synthetic resin 207, first the metal plate 205 and the bolt 201 are inserted inside a die, the die for producing the synthetic resin member 207, and are positioned at a predetermined position in the die. Then, molten synthetic resin is poured into the die to form the metal plate 205 and the bolt 201 together with the synthetic resin 207.
The metal plate 205 and an LA terminal 211 which is a round terminal disposed on an upper surface 250 of the metal plate exposed on outside of the synthetic resin member 207, are sandwiched between the bolt 201 and a nut 213 to be electrically connected to each other.
However, the above-described fixing structure 206 for fixing the metal plate and the bolt to the synthetic resin has a problem. That is, since the both edges 252, 253 of the metal plate 205 are buried under burying portions 270 (circled portions shown in FIG. 8) of the synthetic resin member 207, with the burying portions 270 covering the upper surface 250 of the metal plate 205. Thus, the upper surface 250 is often covered by a resin (in other words, resin is attached to the upper surface). Such resin attachment to the upper surface of the metal plate is undesirable because it can cause a lowering in a connection reliability between the metal plate 205 and the LA terminal 211.
Furthermore, for the above-described fixing structure 206, since the both edges 252, 253 of the metal plate 205 are formed together with the synthetic resin member 207 by insert molding in order to be fixed to the synthetic resin member 207, the metal plate 205 needs to be larger than a dimension required to locate the LA terminal thereon. Such an increase in size of the metal plate 205 eventually leads to an increase in size of the electric components having the fixing structure 206.